Some Republicans are preaching the weird, false narrative that Democrats are using the coronavirus pandemic to take away people’s freedom and wreck the economy to promote their political fortunes. Such a narrative is nuts: Democrats don’t enjoy restrictions on public gatherings or 4.8% declines in GDP any more than Republicans or non-partisans do.
We can reverse the Republican narrative by looking at the big parties’ convention plans. Republican leadership is plowing ahead with plans for its national convention:
On a conference call with reporters last week, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said the party is moving “full steam ahead” with its plans for an in-person convention.
A spokeswoman for the convention said nothing has changed since then.
“We are full steam ahead and planning for a full-seated convention in August,” the spokeswoman said [Amie Parnes and Jonathan Easley, “Parties Go Separate Ways with Summer Conventions,” The Hill, 2020.04.29].
…while Democrats, including the nominee who could really use a convention bump, are more skeptical of gathering in person for a political spectacle:
Most of the Democrats interviewed by The Hill said they have extreme difficulty envisioning a scenario where they could comfortably make the case that it would be safe to bring thousands of people to a summer convention.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said earlier this month the Democrats may have to hold a “virtual convention.”
“I don’t see how thousands of people can congregate anywhere,” a source close to Biden’s campaign said. “That’s just not the world we’re living in” [Parnes and Easley, 2020.04.29].
Foregoing a face-to-face convention isn’t just about sparing delegates coronavirus risk; it’s about avoiding putting further strain on already stretched local law enforcement and public safety resources. Consider the effort Milwaukee city officials have to make to prepare for the Democratic convention:
Among those facing significant unknowns are police officials, who had expected thousands of officers from across the state and nation to join Milwaukee police in providing protection at the convention. They now must determine how many officers from other departments are needed — and still available.
“It’s a big question mark, and unfortunately the most thorough answer I can give you is probably the most vague in that we’re rolling with the situation,” Nick DeSiato, chief of staff to Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales, told Coggs at the meeting. “We have people that are working around the clock on both (the pandemic and the DNC), but we’re moving them effectively on parallel tracks.”
…Rhonda Kelsey, the city’s purchasing director, told members of the Common Council that she is working on getting the necessary equipment for the DNC, but her primary concern is making sure that city workers have the personal protective equipment they need to contend with the pandemic.
“If I have a procurement request related to COVID-19 in my left hand and a DNC procurement request in my right hand; clearly I’m going to be focused on COVID-19 procurement related matters,” she said at the meeting [Alison Dirr, “Milwaukee Plans for Democratic National Convention Facing Unknowns in Coronavirus Pandemic,” MSN, 2020.04.29].
City government in Charlotte, the site of the GOP convention, will face even more security costs to accommodate Donald Trump and his Secret Service detail. The Charlotte City Council barely approved accepting a $50-million federal security grant to help cover convention costs Monday, with some members expressing deep concern about trying to plan such an event amidst pandemic uncertainty:
“We need to stop this charade right now,” City Council member Braxton Winston said. “We should not tell our city staff or CMPD to plan for something that we know is not going to happen. And for democracy’s sake, we all need to come together to figure out how to make a virtual convention work.”
…City Council member Matt Newton, who voted against taking the grant, said he feared Charlotte would become a “petri dish” for the novel coronavirus.
And City Council member Malcolm Graham, who supported the grant, said he would be “really, really concerned” about the implications of a 50,000-person mass gathering.
Although the RNC is expected to pump at least $100 million into Charlotte’s economy, Graham said hospitality revenues must be weighed with public safety.
”There is no testing, there is no tracking, there is no tracing,” Graham said, referring to coronavirus mitigation tactics that could loosen social distancing requirements. “That is a large amount of people who will come and leave, and I guess in 14 days, we will find out the impact it had on our community” [Alison Kuznitz, “Charlotte Approves $50M RNC Grant. But Leaders Doubt Convention Can Happen with COVID-19,” Charlotte Observer, 2020.04.27].
Democrats have already postponed their convention from July to August in response to pandemic concerns. It thus seems silly to suggest that Democrats are putting political gain above the public good. The talk around national conventions indicates the contrary: Democrats sound more willing than Republicans to put public health above political publicity.
Related Rescheduling: The South Dakota Democratic Party is holding an online convention June 20. The South Dakota Republican Party is still advertising a face-to-face convention in Watertown that weekend.
I was looking forward to the Democratic Convention being in Milwaukee, but I would rather forego it this time. Wisconsin has a second hump in our covid curve due to the primary election and an outbreak at a meat-packer in Green Bay. We also are expecting a third hump to show up sometime next week due to several days of the Trump cult covidiot protests in various cities in Wisconsin. If the Republicans’ suit to declare Governor Evers’ second safer at home order invalid, we’ll be having a much bigger outbreak probably extending through the summer. It won’t be safe for anyone coming to Wisconsin.
I actually think this is an orchestrated effort by Republicans to infect more and more Wisconsin residents in hopes of killing off minority voters here. It’s certainly been favored by the Nazi element. Republican slow motion genocide is about their only hope of retaining power.
The thing about the GOP holding conventions is that they’d be killing their voters. WTH?
The people most at risk other than GOP will be the folks working in hotels and restaurants; low income, often POC and likely to be Democratic voters.
Sociopaths have indeed bubbled to the top of the GOP, much like gaseous reactions in sewage effluents.
This story is about the way the far-right is using COVID-19 as a weapon against minorities. These Nazi groups are behind the protests in Michigan and Wisconsin. Of course, they rope in a lot of other naive folks, but the Nazi plan is to have COVID-19 infect a lot of people because it tends to kill minorities more than white people.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/world-struggles-stop-deaths-celebrates-covid-19-200326165545387.html
Here is the gist of it, as written by excellent Strib columnist Jennifer Brooks:
“For some Minnesotans, the shutdown is a nuisance. For some, it’s an existential threat to the business they’ve spent their life building. For some, it may be the thing that saves their life.”
Rep. Pat Garofalo, a noisy and obnoxious Republican, agrees with that statement. If he can, most of the SDGOP ought to as well.